Real-time audio, such as a telephone conversation between two people using telephones, may be transmitted over a packet network such as the Internet using Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”). VoIP may be used instead of transmitting the telephone conversation over a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) switched connection in order to take advantage of expanded service offerings and/or eliminate or reduce charges for a long distance telephone call.
To transmit voice data over the packet network, a packet transmitter in a source Internet node encodes the analog voice signal, stores the encoded data in the payload of one or more data packets, and transmits the data packets over the packet network.
A subscriber with Internet service subscribes to a VoIP Service that sets up sessions for transferring real-time audio over the Internet. A subscriber may monitor and control his or her service via a browser over the Internet. The subscriber may monitor and control settings related to call forwarding, conferencing, voice messaging and the like, and may access information like call logs and billing status. To protect unauthorized access to the subscriber's user-specific information, the VoIP Service typically assigns a user identifier and a password to each subscriber. The user identifier and password identify the subscriber to the VoIP Service.